�������� Introduction 7 �� ������������������������� � Shape-Masses of the Figure 9 Shape-Masses of the Head: Ball and Wedge 9 Barrel Shaped Rib Cage 12 The Wedge Box of the Pelvis 21 Column Forms of the Arms and Legs 26 Wedge Masses of Hand and Foot 37 �� ����������������������������� �� The Torso is Primary 45 The Legs are Secondary 48 The Arms are Third in Importance 55 The Head is Last 59 Exercises in Notation 61 �� ���������������������������������������������������� �� Overlapping Forms 65 Form Flow and Form Unity 68 Interconnection Lines 68 Outline and Contour 95 Tone Gradation 100 �� ��������������������������������������������������������� ��� Cylindrical and Barrel Forms 105 The Cylinder as a Rational Form 105 Finding Constant Factors 107 Width of Form as a Constant Factor 107 The Arms ��� The Hands 120 The Joints 127 �� ����������������������������������������������������������� ��� The Circle in Space: The Ellipse 135 The Joint as Pivot; The Member as Radius 136 The Isosceles Triangle Measuring Device 144 �� ������������������������������� ��� Parallel Projection of Solid Forms 152 Deep Space Projection of the Figure in Action 154 Figure Invention by Reversible Projection 156 Perspective Projection of the Figure 159 Phase-Sequence Projections: The Multiple Action Figure 165 Chin Thrust Leads Body Action 168 The Hand in Phase-Sequence Projection 174 ���������� 174 ����� 175 ������������ Most art students—and too many professional artists—will do anything to avoid drawing the human figure in deep space. Walk through the life drawing classes of any art school and you'll discover that nearly every student is terrified of action poses with torsos tilting toward him or away from him, with arms and legs striding forward or plunging back into the distance; twisting and bending poses in which the forms of the figure overlap and seem to conceal one another; and worst of all, reclining poses, with the figure seen in perspective! These are all problems in foreshortening, which really means drawing the figure so that it looks like a solid, three dimensional object which is moving through real space—not like a paper doll lying flat on a sheet of paper. Drawing the figure in deep space fore- shortening is not a mere technical trick, not a mere problem to be solved; it's the essence of figure drawing as perfected by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Rubens, and the other great masters of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. But most art students would greatly prefer to draw the figure as if it were a soldier standing at attention, with the axes of the body and limbs parallel to the surface of the drawing paper, like a building in an architectural elevation. Well, no, they don't ������ prefer to draw it that way, but the dynamic, three dimensional, foreshortened figure is so forbidding that most students are inclined to give up and stick to wooden soldiers—though silently longing for some magic key to the secret of foreshortening. Burne Hogarth's ���������������������� doesn't pretend to be a magic key-to-three- dimensional-figure-drawing in-ten-easy-lessons, but it is a magical book. Here, for the first time, is a logical, complete system of drawing the figure in deep space, presented in step-by-step pictorial form. I've read every figure drawing book in print (it's my job) and I ���� that there's no book like it. The system and the teaching method have been perfected over the years in the author's classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where many of the dazzling drawings in this book — immense, life-size figures which the artist ������� without a model — were created before the eyes of hundreds of awestruck students. And surely the most stunning thing about ���������������������� is that Burne Hogarth teaches the ������ to invent figures as the great masters did. After all, Michelangelo didn't ask his models to hang from the ceiling or hover in the air as he drew! He invented them—and this is what the author demonstrates in the carefully programmed series of drawings (with analytical text and captions) that sweep across these pages with the speed and graphic tempo of an animated film. ����������������������� in the author's own words, shows the artist "how to fool the eye, how to depress, bend, and warp the two dimensional plane" of the drawing paper so that a figure drawing springs from the page in the same way that the author's remarkable drawings bound from the pages of this book. He demonstrates how to create the illusion of roundness and depth by light and shade, by the overlapping of forms, by the transitions from one form to another, as well as by the accurate rendering of individual body forms. He explains how to visualize the figure from every conceivable angle of view, including the upviews and the downviews that baffle students and professionals alike. Particularly revealing are the multiphase drawings — like multiple exposure photographs—in which figure movement is dissected, broken down into a series of overlapping views of the body, "frozen" at various stages of movement, so that the reader can see how forms change at each critical phase. Learning to see movement as a �������� the reader can draw the figure more convincingly because he knows what happens to body forms at each stage of the process. The reader ultimately finds that he can ������� the figure—from any viewpoint and in any stage of any action—as systematically as an architect projects a building in a perspective drawing. Burne Hogarth's achievement in ������� ������� ������� is the creation of a rational system which eliminates the guesswork that plagues every student of the figure. This system isn't a shortcut, a collection of tricks to memorize in order to produce stock solutions to drawing problems—for nothing can make figure drawing ����� easy. The human figure remains the most demanding of all subjects for the artist. What �������� ������� ������� reveals is the inherent logic of the figure, and the author proposes a system of study that is built on this logic. The system takes time and patience and lots of drawing. You'll want to reread �������� ������� ������� many times. Give this remarkable book the dedication it deserves and the logic of the human figure will finally become second nature to you. Your re- ward will be that you go beyond merely rendering figures — and begin to invent them. Donald Holden Figure drawing in depth is accomplished with ease and authority only when the student becomes aware of the characteristic body forms. He must train his eye to see three kinds of forms in the human figure: ����� forms (egg, ball, and barrel masses); ������ forms (cylinder and cone structures); and ��������� forms (box, slab, and wedge blocks). These three kinds of forms should be distinguished from one an other and studied separately according to their individual differences. Comparisons should be made with respect to relative shape, width, and length and special emphasis should be placed on variations in bulk, thickness, and volume. This is an approach which seeks to define the body as the har-monious arrangement and interrelationship of its separate and individual defined parts. ���� ���������� ���������� At some point in the art student's development, figure drawing reaches a stage where better performance becomes the norm. With his work at this level, the student may be able to draw a variety of natural forms (those usually seen in landscape and still life) in space. Capable as his work appears at this point, the student should develop a deeper insight into the forms and interrelationships of the parts of the figure. He may be thoroughly familiar with figure work in conventional attitudes, with depicting the posed movements and gestures of the art class model; but these, if the student is aware, begin to look predictably dull and static. It takes a different kind of effort to conceive and draw the figure in ����� ��������������� in form-over-form spatial recession. If the student is called upon to show the unexpected and unfamiliar actions of the body— those seen from high or low angles he feels taxed to the limit of his resources. At times, in direct confrontation with the live figure, he may do passably well by copying the model in the see- and-draw studio method; but this approach is not always successful or satisfying. To invent, to create at will out of the storehouse of his imagination—that is the challenge which so frequently eludes the most intensive efforts of the art student. �������������������������� The significance of foreshortened form lies in describing three dimensional volume rather than in delineating flat shapes. Our approach, therefore, in involves more than contour drawing only. Since shape which is delineated only by outline is two dimensional and has no volume, it cannot express form in depth; but when the forms of the figure are visualized as being three dimensional in space, the result is a ����� ����������������������� Inherent in the concept of shape-mass is the idea that the body is a defined mass, a three dimensional volume existing in space and depth, which is made up of a number of parts. Each of these parts is also a three dimensional volume existing in space and depth. It follows that the figure is a multiform complex of shape-masses, all independently formed and all related. It will be our first task to research the form properties of each of these shape- masses which go into the formation of the over-all shape-mass of the figure. In observing the parts—the shape-masses — of the human figure, we shall try to look at them from new angles, from a series of changing viewpoints, describing them especially with a "filmic" concept of vision in motion. ������������������������� �������������� Different views of the head expose different dominant forms. The cranial ball, for instance, is usually considered fairly equal in size to the lower facial wedge. This is especially apparent in straight-on, front views. But when the cranial ball is seen from an overhead angle, it presents a far more impressive bulk than the facial wedge. As we observe the head from a high position, from the top the crania vault dominates the narrow, con stricted mass of the face coming from under the projecting brow arch. As our viewing angle becomes lower, the facial mass tends to enlarge as the cranial mass recedes. Then, as our vantage point is raised once more, this time in a right-to-left turn, the cranial mass is once again dominant. From a bottom view, the wedge of the face takes on a more important appearance in relation to the cranial structure. The features of the face reveal a new aspect: looking upward at the face from underneath, we see the under- surfaces of the jaw, lips, nose, ears, and brow, and these forms assert a commanding presence over the side and frontal planes. From the rear, the skull case and the facial wedge show their most characteristic differences in shape: the facial wedge, angular and hard-cornered, is small when contrasted with the larger, dome-shaped cranial mass. 11 ���������������������� The barrel shaped rib cage belongs the class of ����� (rotund, egg, and ball shape) forms. It is the largest sin form structure of the entire bo Frontally, its curved surface terminates top and bottom in two horseshoe-like passages. The descending collarbone depression of the upper chest (left). When the figure is tipped forward into a deep frontal view, the swelling curve of the rib cage, front to rear, is so great that it is able to girdle the head within its encircling contour (below). The cylindrical column of the neck emerges like a thick, short tree limb growing from within the triangulate hollow of the chest (left). In any view looking upward, the barreling chest mass dominates all other forms; like a curving landscape, the pectoral arch overlaps the neck. This torso, shown upview front, reveals how much larger the mass of the chest is compared with its attached members, the head and shoulders. 14 The upper back, shown upview rear, is ample enough to obscure the greater part of the head and conceal the attachment of the neck column to the chest. The ��������� two large, inverted teardrop shapes, descend from each side of the upper chest mass. The deltoids are normally part of the arms, but because they connect the arms to the rib cage barrel, they become part of a unit des- cribed as the �������������������� 16 When the ������������������� are considered as a combined form, we must be aware of a change in appearance in the upper chest mass: with the arm down (A), the shoulder merges with the chest (in this position, the upper torso takes on the qualified appearance of a ������� and with the arm upraised (B), the shoulder lifts from the chest, exposing a ������ shape (above). Special note should be made of the drawing of ������� ������� on the rib cage. In general appearance, the young adult female breast has the look of an overturned teacup positioned at the lower angle of the chest (above). The diaphragm arch appears as a great, vaulting tunnel of bone at the base of the front of the chest. From this opening, like the hollow bottom of a brandy bottle, the long abdominal mass emerges and descends in three undulant stages, or tiers. It should be observed that the terminal belly form (the third tier), starting at the lower level of the navel and compressing to the pubic arch, is not only the largest of the three stages, but is roughly equivalent in size to the frontal head mass of this figure (left). � To place the breast correctly, it is necessary first to find the position of the ������ on the chest muscle. Using a male figure (for the sake of clarity), we start at the pit of the neck where the collarbones join (A). From this point, we plot a curve at a 45° angle to the vertical, central line of the body, which follows the barrel shape of the rib cage and progresses outward and down across the chest. The nipple disc (B) is located on this line just above the deep corner margin of the chest muscle. � If we draw two 45° lines outward from the center body line to the right and to the left across the chest barrel we can correctly place the nipples of the chest base (above). When the cuplike breasts are superimposed posed on the nipple positions, and the discs are advanced to the surface of the breast mounds, note that �����breasts point off the curve of the chest at a �������� angle of 90° (right).